Itagaki Quits and Sues Tecmo

Game Developer Tomonobu Itagaki has announced that his last day with Tecmo will be July 1st, and he is suing the company he has worked for since 1992. Itagaki is the creator of the Dead or Alive series and the Ninja Gaiden series.

Itagaki is suing Tecmo for about $1.4 million, claiming unpaid bonuses and mistreatment by the Tecmo president Yoshimi Yasuda.

Itagaki claims he was promised a bonus for the completion of Dead or Alive 4. When the time came, Tecmo refused to pay. At this time, Itagaki says Yasuda became defiant and told Itagaki to basically deal with or quit and sue the company.

Looks like Itagaki is taking his soon to be former boss's advice.

I'd imagine Itagaki will have no problem landing on his feet. Look for him possibly working for Microsoft since he has made no secret of his like of the Xbox 360 and dislike of the PS3. Of course, he also likes some things about the Wii...

Dead Rising Sued!

Richard Rubinstein, the guy who owns the rights to Dawn of the Dead(why doesn't George Romero own these rights?), is suing Capcom because he says Dead Rising is ripped off of Dawn of the Dead.

First, Dead Rising came out in 2006. Why the long wait? (I personally blame Josh. He went to a George Romero screening in the last month or two and met Romero. I bet he was all "Hey, you ever play Dead Rising?" "Dead what?")

Rubinstein and his MKR Group say in their complaint that "Both works are dark comedies... In both, the recreational activities of the zombies and absurdly grotesque 'kill scenes' provide unexpected comedic relief... Both works provided thoughtful social commentary on the 'mall culture' zeitgeist, in addition to serving up a sizable portion of sensationalistic violence."

But I don't remember the zombies in Dawn of the Dead being the result of America's love of cheap meat. In all the zombie movies/games/stories I've seen, the plotline for Dead Rising was definitely one of the most unique(while also being strangely anti-American).

I say this is a ridiculous lawsuit. Yes, you may think of Dawn of the Dead when playing Dead Rising but only because it takes place in a mall. Stop clogging up our judicial system! And more importantly, do NOT slow down production on Dead Rising 2!

Jack Thompson happy to be sued

Jack Thompson recently sued Take Two... again. Recently, Take-Two has decided to countersue Jack Thompson for "nuisance lawsuits."

Now Jack Thompson is back in the news saying he has been praying for Take-Two to sue him and that he will be able to use this lawsuit to destroy them.

You can read his whole e-mail over at Joystiq.

Epic's VP Apologizes

I would like to think that I single handedly got the VP of Epic, Mark Rein, to apologize for the I-Hate-Freedom department at Epic. I shot an e-mail to Mark telling him that I thought it was totally stupid that his lawyers sent the letter to Emilio Lopez. Mark actually replied with the message that he sent out to the fan sites. Check it out.

Ugh. Our lawyers are trying to do their job and protect our trademarks but I guess they didn't realize this wasn't a commercial project and they fired off a standard form letter. It is unfortunate when this happens but the problem with trademarks is you HAVE to protect them and Emilio's work looks so amazingly professional, right down to a cool package!, that they probably failed to notice this was a one-off gift for non-commercial use. What we need to do is come up with some sort of permission letter for things like these so that we're properly protecting our future commercial rights but not stopping people from doing cool fan art like this.

On behalf of Epic I apologize to Emilio and anyone who was offended by this.


Mark Rein
Epic Games, Inc.

Way to go Mark. *Gives Mark a soft punch to the arm*

Epic Lawyers Hate Freedom

Epic representative, Zachary R. Bishop (The Douchebagger), has sent a letter to an Emilio Lopez to remove any Gears of War logos from a Munny doll he made or they will take legal action. A Munny is a figurine that you can customize to your liking, but apparently Epic's I-Hate-Freedom department says that fans of the game and franchise aren't allowed to do such "illegal" acts. Everyone should write Marc Rein, VP of Epic Games, and tell him that he should put a big Gears of War style boot in the ass of Zach.

Hey Epic, do like Bungie and allow your fans to have the freedom to do things with your precious IP. Without your fans you wouldn't have a Gears of War franchise. And fire that Zach Douchebag guy.